The environment protection provisions in the draft of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) free trade agreement will not be enforceable, says whistleblower site WikiLeaks, which released a section of the document.

The Environment Chapter of the TPP describes how the 12
countries negotiating the controversial treaty plan to protect
the environment. As of November 2013, when the treaty was
discussed at a Salt Lake City summit, the chapter lacked any
mechanism to enforce it or any sanctions for violating it. This
is in contrast with other chapters dealing with labor,
intellectual property or agriculture, which all contain binding
language.

With no enforcement clauses, the environment chapter is “a
toothless public relations exercise” and “media sugar
water,” said WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

The work on the TPP has been widely criticized for its secretive
nature. Its impact would be global, considering that the prospect
member-nations, including the US, Japan, Australia, New Zealand,
account for some 40 percent of world’s GDP, but parties involved
have been unwilling to disclose detail of the draft over the
three years that negotiations dragged on.

WikiLeaks obtained draft documents from the Salt Lake City summit
and has been publishing them since November 2013. There has been
one meeting on the TPP after the summit so far.

If the chapter goes into the final document, it would be against
a 2007 agreement, which then-President George W. Bush reached
with US lawmakers, reports the New York Times. The so-called May
10 Agreement requires that all US free trade deals with foreign
nations had legally binding environmental provisions. Apparently
the US delegation finds it difficult to convince its 11 partners
on the TPP to abide by it.

“Bilateral negotiations are a very different thing,”
Jennifer Haverkamp, the former head of the United States trade
representative’s environmental office told the newspaper.
“Here, if the US is the only one pushing for this, it’s a
real uphill battle to get others to agree if they don’t like
it.”

Criticism of the environmental guards follows other complaints
over the rules, which the TPP would impose on some of world’s
biggest economies. Critics complained that the treaty would give
overreaching intellectual property protection dealing with drugs
and agriculture, restrict internet freedoms and empower
multinational corporations to challenge country laws, among other
things.